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It’s that time of year again! As we once again ready ourselves for year-end fundraising, we asked our Account Managers to pass along their best advice. The ideas were diverse, but one thing they all agreed on: this is the time of year to pull out every bell and whistle.

Top Tips for Engaging Donors During #GivingTuesday: A recent check of the organizations seeing the value of the national effort reflects only 10 religious nonprofits listed on the initiative’s website, and of those, only one appears to be Jewish (JChoice.org)! Clearly, there is an opportunity for the Jewish community to take on a much larger role within the #GivingTuesday movement, especially since it is coinciding with Chanukah this year.

To help Jewish nonprofits make the most of this event, we offer the following tips:

Shutdown Blues | The Jewish Week: While national Jewish organizations are sorting through the essential services that the impasse may cut, regional Jewish service providers in the Washington area are dealing with the tens of thousands of furloughed workers in their midst.
The Jewish Community Center of Greater Washington, in Rockville, Md., is adding exercise and yoga classes for furloughed government workers, its director, Michael Feinstein, told JTA.

YPO to Celebrate 58th Annual Gala VEGAS LIVE, 11/2: Every year, the YPO Gala is a must-attend social event which benefits an exceptional arts organization, and our 2013 Gala will truly be a night to remember," said Patricia Mederos, President of YPO. "We are so grateful to this year's gala sponsors without whom YPO would not be able to further its mission of opera education."

Founded in l955, YPO is supported by a group of women who work without staff to advocate educational music programs and the Florida Grand Opera,

4 Interview Questions For Future Leaders | The NonProfit Times: Leadership is a revolving door at nonprofits. While it might be nice to have one voice at the helm of your organization for many years, the reality is that your leader will leave that position at some point, whether by choice or circumstance. When that day comes, will you have a successor-in-waiting or will you be scrambling for a replacement? The answer to this question can depend on how you handle your employee interviews.

Thursday, October 10, 2013

Bunch Ball Fundraising | The Pursuant Blog: ve found myself reflecting on bunch ball through the lens of organizational theory and nonprofit fundraising. And I realize that the symptoms of bunch ball bear a great deal of resemblance to the symptoms of a similar malady afflicting many nonprofit fundraising programs:

Simply put, because direct mail works. Randy Brewer of Brewer Direct recently said, "Let's not trade dollars for dimes," reflecting the reality that direct mail is still outraising newer forms of fundraising. Bottom line: It should never be "either/or" — smart fundraisers know they need to be digital-savvy, but they also need to be direct-mail-savvy.

An Executive Director’s Guide to Financial Leadership - NPQ - Nonprofit Quarterly: There is an important distinction between financial management and financial leadership. Financial management is the collecting of financial data, production of financial reports, and solution of near-term financial issues. Financial leadership, on the other hand, is guiding a nonprofit organization to sustainability. This is the job of an executive director. He or she is responsible for developing and maintaining a business model that produces exceptional mission impact and sustained financial health. To do that successfully, the executive director has to be ever mindful of essential nonprofit business concepts and realities. The following is a guide to this way of thinking for an executive—a summary of what we see as the eight key business principles that should guide financial leadership practice.

Smokies hit by vandals during federal shutdown | The Asheville Citizen-Times | citizen-times.com: But on Saturday night, someone blow-torched a locked gate at the junction of Newfound Gap Road and Clingmans Dome Road, broke through the gate, then proceeded up the road to the Clingmans Dome parking lot. They then used the torch on a Great Smoky Mountains Association donation box, in an attempt to gain access to the money inside, Jordan said. They caused significant damage to the box, but they were unsuccessful in stealing the money inside.

Not that they would have gotten much. “Anyone breaking into a donation box that no one can get to is not going to be the sharpest tool in the shed,” said Terry L. Maddox, executive director of the Great Smoky Mountains Association, which maintained the box.

Government Shutdown Hurting Nonprofits | GuideStar Blog: The House of Representatives voted unanimously in favor of paying all furloughed government workers back pay when the shutdown ends. Congressman Michael Turner, R-Ohio, told the Christian Science Monitor that federal workers shouldn’t suffer consequences due to the government stalemate. While the weekend legislation was great news for 800,000 federal workers, it didn’t extend to the 1.4 million tax-exempt charities and nonprofits that also rely on government funding.

We’re now at day 4 of the Congressional shutdown – while the impasse may be resolved at any time, we’ve compiled a list to clarify the impacts as we know them on Virginia and some relevant federal programs. Thanks to our allies and partners (see links) for some data included below:

The AFP Blog: Help Us End the Shutdown: We in the charitable sector spend a lifetime in service to our causes, our donors and those who rely on our services. Congress is elected to serve the people it represents.

But only one of us is doing its job. Only one of us seems to understand the concept of service.
We need to let Congress know how their lack of dedication and service is hurting us and the people we serve. This isn’t about partisan politics—it’s about ensuring that we have the resources to do our jobs and continue our service to the people who depend on us.

Is There Anything Jewish About Giving to Charity? – Forward.com: hese questions, which arise while reading “Charity: The Place of the Poor in the Biblical Tradition,” by Gary Anderson, a Catholic scholar who teaches at Notre Dame, may seem crude: Isn’t charity supposed to be its own reward? Not in Jewish tradition, which wrestles with the question of whether and how we will be compensated for sustaining the widow and the orphan and for being kind to the stranger.

Nonprofit groups hoping to boost their fundraising dollars by adding an online component to annual raffles are being told by the state commission that regulates charity gambling that online ticket sales are illegal.

Children’s Wish Foundation International, based in Georgia, is No. 3 on a list of the nation’s 50 worst charities created by the Tampa Bay Times and The Center for Investigative Reporting. The rankings are based on the amount of money charities spend on outside fundraisers.

Monday, October 07, 2013

The Daily Pennsylvanian :: Editorial | Dude, where's my philanthropy: ut it’s better to inspire us because of what you’re doing and why you’re doing it than because of who you are. It might not be easy for the average student to relate to big-shot careers or people who have millions to pump into new organizations, but it’s relatively easy to connect to why someone’s passionate about what they’re doing to give back.

In this sense, we’d like to see not only big names at these events, but people whose lives have been defined more by their work on the ground than by what they did before giving back.

STERN: Rethinking Johnson’s gift | Yale Daily News: Unqualified praise further obscures the fact that this donation was also part of a larger, and potentially disturbing, trend. In the last couple decades, the largest donators to education went from nonprofit institutions to privately funded foundations. Education, public and private, is increasingly funded by billionaire philanthropists such as the Gates and Walton families.

While few are denying the generosity of these individuals, their influence is extremely troubling. The rise of private philanthropy in education is the rise of very few people having an inordinately loud voice in setting policy. The Gates Foundation, for instance, has no public accountability at all and has a specific political agenda; the Foundation opposes teacher tenure and strongly supports charter schools. Because of the massive amounts of money given, these positions tend to become increasingly adopted by both the public and policymakers, including by the Obama administration. Thus, a very few well-heeled individuals steer national policy. And as the gap between the poor and the uber-wealthy gets larger and larger, fewer and fewer people will have a say.

The Stelter Company :: Research/White Papers: Metrics That Matter: The Links Between Advisors, Donors and Nonprofits
Stelter's 2013 Insight Report examines the behaviors, attitudes and characteristics of professional advisors who interact with individuals and nonprofits on the topics of estate planning and planned giving. Our goal was to uncover intelligence to help guide nonprofits in their interactions with advisors and to position their organizations for greater fundraising success. Key insights include: